Santa Ana Calvary Chapel, El Modena Win Divisions

Orange El Modena took center stage at the Southern Section Eastern Division individual wrestling championships Saturday night at Riverside Norte Vista High. The Vanguards won a second consecutive team title and had four of seven finalists win individual championships.

El Modena scored 249.5 points, Rosemead was second with 203 and Long Beach Millikan finished third with 156.

El Modena Coach Alan Clinton didn’t leave the championship mat for five consecutive matches between the 135- and 160-pound weight classes. After Quinn DeLuna lost an 8-4 decision to Hesperia’s Daniel Alajandro in the 135-pound championship, the Vanguards won the next four matches.

Reidar Jensvold defeated Sultana’s Jeff Berrios, 9-5, at 140 pounds, Jermey Burzumato held off Chris Llanes of Millikan, 13-11, at 145 pounds, Rex Bang defeated Ansony Kim, 11-5, at 152 pounds, and Daniel Contreras won his third consecutive individual title at 160 pounds with a 6-3 victory over Idris Gant of Fontana Kaiser.

The Vanguards qualified nine wrestlers for the Masters meet next week at Fountain Valley High. “This is the first team I’ve ever had win back-to-back titles,” said Clinton, in his 18th year at El Modena.

The best matchup came in the 112-pound division, where Villa Park’s Travis Featherstone took on Rosemead’s Sean Prentice, the state’s top-ranked wrestlers in their weight class. Prentice, the Five Counties champion, held a 5-4 lead in the third period before Featherstone scored four points on a takedown and near fall to earn an 8-6 victory.

West Covina crowned its first individual champions in 10 years. Efren Tirado won at 130 pounds and Tremon Silvera won at 189 pounds for the Bulldogs.

Dan Arritt

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Santa Ana Calvary Chapel and host Chino Hills Ayala dominated the Inland Division tournament. Top-seeded Calvary Chapel accumulated 271 points and qualified 10 wrestlers for the Masters meet while seven wrestlers qualified for Ayala, which finished second with 187 points.

Mario Estrada of Calvary Chapel was selected the tournament’s outstanding wrestler in the lower weights. He had three pins and a technical fall in four bouts, including a pin of Santa Fe’s Eugene Yasutomi in 2:52 in the finals.

Joe Williams, the No. 1-ranked wrestler in the country at 189 pounds, was the outstanding wrestler of the upper weights. Williams (39-0), a two-time section champion, had three first-round pins before defeating Ayala’s Arman Kucakkoseoglu by a technical fall, 20-5, in the semifinals. Williams pinned Rudy Torres of Garden Grove Santiago in 59 seconds in the final.

Torres’ younger brother, Anthony, surprised the field in the 160-pound class. The Santiago junior was unseeded in the 32-man draw, but pinned the No. 1 seed, Eddie Garcia of La Habra, in the first round. In the final, he trailed second-seeded James Hamlin of Glendora, 5-2, before pinning Hamlin with one second left in the match.

-- Steve Galluzzo